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Station 23: Conspiracy Corners
29 Nov[iframe style=”border:none” src=”//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/16985273/height/100/width//thumbnail/no/render-playlist/no/theme/custom/tdest_id/1840202/custom-color/87A93A” height=”100″ width=”100%” scrolling=”no” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen]
In this episode:
Random Rider Eric… notices prayer doesn’t produce
What Counts as Conspiracy? with Balloon-animal Jason
Meta-humanist Interview with the Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta
Rest in Particles Farewell, James Randi.
Plus More!
Sidetracked: The Covidiots! and BLM
22 Sep[iframe style=”border:none” src=”//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/16076894/height/100/width//thumbnail/no/render-playlist/no/theme/custom/tdest_id/1840202/custom-color/87A93A” height=”100″ width=”100%” scrolling=”no” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen]
The train is sidetracked for months by Covid crisis, and now the riots have taken hold of our hometown!
In this episode:
America, O Shame On Thee a stirring rendition of the classic
The Covidiots! Conservative or Liberal, who cares?…Where is the leadership?
Grumpy Jim Will a libertarian be in favor of mandatory masks?
Atheists Less Likely To Die From Coronavirus research finds!
Kenosha Burns for BLM Observations from Ground Zero
Blacks Bop vol. 1! The AU Train goes Soul Train with the Ghost of Don Cornelius
plus more!
Station 24: Darwin
1 May[iframe style=”border:none” src=”//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/14189282/height/100/width//thumbnail/no/render-playlist/no/theme/custom/tdest_id/1840202/custom-color/87A93A” height=”100″ width=”100%” scrolling=”no” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen]
In the midst of Covid-19, with a team of science-deniers leading the American response, the train pulls into to Darwin Station, with a big dose of medicine for the un-evolved! Get on board and help us bring Science back into vogue…. with Special Guest….Aron Ra!
In Darwin:
Random Rider Josh thinks it’s wrong to lie to kids…
Darwin-Diggety These monkeys weigh in on the atheist hero and his legacy.
Ra-Volution Interview with Creationist Wras’ler Aron Ra
Secular News and Events….and Commentary
…..and More!!!
Station 23: Church and State
26 Feb[iframe style=”border:none” src=”//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/13308791/height/100/width//thumbnail/no/render-playlist/no/theme/custom/tdest_id/1840202/custom-color/87A93A” height=”100″ width=”100%” scrolling=”no” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen]
Two streets that should never intersect! Why are Christian civic planners trying to bring them together? And how can we stop them?
At Church and State:
Random Rider: Steve, Steve, could never believe
The Panel: Religiots vote as a bloc. So should we.
Welcome to the Family: A report on the Netflix horror documentary
Separation Anxiety: The great secular constitution just doesn’t quite work for everybody.
Secular News and Events….. Vouchers in Montana; Mormons are big bizz!
Plus More!
Sidetracked 4: Satan’s Leftovers
1 Feb[iframe style=”border:none” src=”//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/12881084/height/100/width//thumbnail/no/render-playlist/no/theme/custom/tdest_id/1840202/custom-color/87A93A” height=”100″ width=”100%” scrolling=”no” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen]
Too much to eat at Satan’s Village for the holidays; we have leftovers!
On this Sidetrack:
CoS v ST Church of Satan was first, but Satanic Temple gets the headlines these days
The Fall Guy The original Super-villain’s true origin story
Plus More!
My Old Friend
13 Oct
The bizarre and heart-wrenching story of our oldest pet’s tribulations this past year or two spun me hard for a minute, and led to the painful birth of this poem. I’m not maudlin about pets, especially cats, but Coco is special. It’s hard to keep these types of verses from being corny, but the effort to avoid such I think led me to some of my favorite phrasing ever.
Click Here to listen to me recite it, or read below on your own.
My old friend had found us
At the bottom of despair
And let us hang around him
As we made our way from there.
He came to us in chaos,
He purred us into peace
He pardoned hearts imprisoned
Upon granting their release.
Birth and Death, Divorce and worse,
He suffered other pets
He murdered critters in the yard
And flabbergasted vets.
A broken fang from fighting,
A tendency to roam,
He disappeared a fortnight once,
And found his way back home.
The road was rough for Tabby tough,
Transitioning of late.
Now deliverance awaited
Down the interstate.
But Irony presses the fabric of life
In a wrinkle-free garment from hell;
And my old friend who mended hearts
Would crush them just as well.
Road trip, rest stop, food and water
Hours from the end.
Couple hundred miles,
A brand new home for my old friend.
But freedom beckons boldly
Of a cold Kentucky dawn;
My travel buddy bolted
For the woods across the lawn
I followed, flailing, logic bailing,
Failing to discuss,
That losing sight of my old friend
Would mean the end of us.
A dismal fog of doom descended,
Dimming daybreak’s flush
I thrust into the thicket,
Over logs and underbrush
Bramble flayed my flesh to mesh
With fire in my breast.
The Wolf of Truth consumed my soul,
Mosquitoes ate the rest.
Of course my pal outpaced me quick,
As cats are keen to do,
But I swear I saw him smiling
As he faded from my view.
Hawk, she screams from high above,
Mourning dove, she moans.
Crow she cackles, Owl she hoots,
In haunting, taunting tones.
Cricket chirps a marching dirge
To measure my defeat
Squirrel hurls insults
At my pussified retreat.
Blue Jay scolded, “stupid man,
your friend is gone for good!”
And Nature’s mocking music
Thus expelled me from the wood.
Coyote howls to greet the day,
Cougar hunts alone.
And all nine lives of every cat
Remain, in fact, his own.
To Bear the pain was down to me,
My friend was unafraid.
So I took one final look
Into the trees beyond the glade.
A Frog of grieving choked my throat,
I croaked his name and then,
I finally, broken-hearted,
Drove away from my old friend.
Texas
29 SepEver wonder why the song isn’t called “Deep in the Mind of Texas”?
Of course you haven’t…. why would you?
Aron Ra had to post recently about how he was testifying before the Texas state “Bored of Education”, as he calls it, regarding that it’s attempt to rewrite history, and subsequently the history books, to portray America as a Christian nation, founded on the ten commandments, among other monkey-headed fundamentalist stupidity.
It makes me wonder if the entire legislature in Texas is a blinking mob of imbeciles who really buy this nonsense, or a giant conspiracy of incredibly cynical evildoers with no whiff of Christian conscience whatsoever? I wonder if there’s a blend? A tiny band of string-pullers, and a huge assembly of small-minded, backwater politicians, as easily wagged by the tail as their pin-headed constituency. I hope at least there’s some bizarre, Eyes Wide Open-style hedonism cult at work to make it more interesting…
To call Texas backwards is to insult all directional vectors, everywhere. To call them dangerous is accurate. They write the textbooks, and they well impress the smaller redneck states with their assumed ability to kick most of the world’s nation’s asses all by their lonesome.
Just as Catholics who continue to attend mass are supporting pedophilia, Texans who continue to live in Texas and don’t speak up about this immeasurably perilous development in a critical time in our nation’s history are part of the problem. Every right-thinking Texan, secular and otherwise, needs to fight this, and stop it now, as tho’ ’twere cancer, because it is. Just as most Christians are too busy with Capitalism to really be good Christians, most secularists are too busy with the same thing to fight the thing that will eventually kill what they love.
It’s a war that could easily be won with a concentrated effort on an intellectual battlefield, and that’s where the war must be fought. After all it’s Texas, and it’s too big to just go kick its ass, even for Aron Ra.
Weed-Whippin’ Nuns
4 JunOrthodox nuns are out whippin’ weeds.
“Because Jesus provides, but the garden has needs.”,
Says sister Joanna, adjusting her grip
On a finely tuned 2.5 horsepower whip.
Squeezing the trigger and ripping the cord,
She’s whippin’ the weeds and avenging the Lord.
She’s whippin’ the weeds from the vegetable plot,
Dressed all in black, not matter how hot.
She’s whippin’ the weeds that threaten the orchard,
And there by that statue of God being tortured.
Conventual nuns, as a rule, are serene,
But check out the guns on sister Helene!
Adding the oil and stirring the mix
In a whimple, a frock, and a wood crucifix.
Sister Calista and Sister Brianne
Are whippin’ together whenever they can.
They whip by the fountain, they whip by the stream,
They see themselves whippin’ at night when they dream
They whip Creeping Charlie before he can creep,
They’re whippin’ themselves every eve ere they sleep.
They’re whippin’ the ragweed before it can rag,
On weekends they’re whippin’ each other, in drag.
It seems in the summer they’re whippin’ all week,
But no one whips weeds like an Orthodox Greek.
Sister Felicia holds forth in the chapel:
“This Order’s whipped weeds since Eve bit the apple,
For sins are but weeds in the landscape of life,
And weeds therefore sins, and the garden is rife.
We once had a novice, a sinner, it’s true,
Whose patch was infested with Wandering Jew!
Her garden and soul hid a snake in the grass,
So I whipped her with Scripture; the Jew I used gas.
So arise noble nuns, like Christ from the crypt,
And weed-whip those fuckers like Jesus was whipped!”
No clover, no burdock, no thistle is safe
From the orthodox nuns and their sisterly strafe
Of head-bump advanceable green nylon line,
At a two hundred forty-eight decibel whine
Of twelve hundred rpm sweeping attack,
With goggles for safety and God at their back.
Hell hath no fury like orthodox nuns
In sensible shoes, with athletic buns.
Two-stroke disciples of Stratton and Briggs,
Beating back nature with weed-whippin’ rigs.
KUSD gets Public Schooled
13 FebSometimes the universe gives you a present. Which is nice, because sooner or later of course, it will exact from you the ultimate price. The hunter who finds a box of shells doesn’t ask questions. He goes hunting. So when a public school teacher wallpapers a 4th grade classroom with the bible, the classroom of the child of a militant atheist activist, well…..what’s the old saying? You never look a gift horse in the mouth. You get on it and ride.
Below is a link to a masterpiece of legalese, forged at the fingertips of one of FFRF’s finest. The letter is the result of the refusal of teacher, principal or assistant superintendent to respond appropriately to numerous complaints from students and parents alike to an obvious and egregious violation of the establishment clause.
FFRF letter to Kenosha USD, WI
The real credit goes to the students themselves, as well as other parents in the class. You see, this isn’t just some random class of early elementary tots, susceptible to basic indoctrination techniques . This was a fourth grade “enrichment” class, Kenosha’s advanced placement students, the brightest of the bright. These 9 and 10-year-olds already well understood what the principal himself claimed ignorance of: Bible verses on the wall of the public school are illegal, unconstitutional and unethical. FFRF sternly warns of the appearance of a pattern of tolerance of religiosity in Kenosha Unified Public School District, including the continued use of creationist compound Camp Timber-lee, whose mission it is to convert all children, and teach them to question evolution when they return to school.
The real shame of course, is the lack of actual learning that goes on in an “enrichment’ class. Instead of science posters and real thoughts from the founders, these kids get subjective morality and identity politics. Further, the proselytizing falls on deaf ears and rolling eyes., wasting valuable class time. The kids whose parents have already indoctrinated them to Christianity are also being under-served by this waste of time, because they’re on board with the message, but still need to learn the actual curriculum. The others reflect today’s society. A couple of Pagans, a atheist or two, a Muslim, a Buddhist, the odd Jewish kid and a whole bunch more “nons” than ever before. Heck it’s Wisconsin. There might even be a Hmong among us.
Although teachers need to be aware of the changing demographic (gone are the days when everybody really was Christian, and were taught about Jews like some wacky uncle you might meet one day), this incident points out exactly why it should never come up. Children from every religious tradition deserve the same access to proper education.
This is FFRF-SEW’s second successful removal of inappropriate religion from the public school systems in SE Wisconsin. Last year, concerned parents’ complaints led to the end of the Bristol, WI school district’s unnatural relationship with Christian firm Thrivent Financial.